The present inventive concept relates to a semiconductor memory, and more particularly, to a nonvolatile memory system including a nonvolatile memory device and a memory controller, and a method of operating the memory controller.
Semiconductor memory devices may be embodied using semiconductor material such as silicon Si, germanium Ge, gallium arsenide GaAs, indium phosphide InP, and so on. Semiconductor memory devices may be classified into volatile semiconductor memory devices and nonvolatile semiconductor memory devices.
Volatile memory devices lose stored data when power supply is interrupted. Examples of volatile memory devices include static RAMs (SRAM), dynamic RAMs (DRAM), synchronous DRAMs (SDRAM), and so on. Nonvolatile memory devices retain stored data even when power supply is interrupted. Examples of nonvolatile memory devices include read only memories (ROM), programmable ROMs (PROM), electrically programmable ROMs (EPROM), electrically erasable and programmable ROMs (EEPROM), flash memory, phase change RAMs (PRAM), magnetic RAMs (MRAM), resistive RAMs (RRAM), ferroelectric RAMs (FRAM), and so on.
Since flash memory has advantages such as a low noise, low power and high operation speed, flash memory is used in various fields. For example, mobile systems such as smart phones and tablet PCs utilize large-capacity flash memory. In flash memory, read and write operations of data are performed by a page unit, and erase operations are performed by a block unit. Flash memory systems may typically use a flash translation layer (FTL). The FTL performs a function of translating a logical address defined by a host (e.g., AP) into a physical address that can be used in the flash memory. The FTL performs an address translation operation based on a mapping table. The FTL can perform other operations such as garbage collection operations, merge operations and wear leveling, and so on.